


Dressing Down

by cyus (cruentum)



Series: Sharing Spaces (Pizza Mouth verse) [5]
Category: Torchwood
Genre: Domestic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-09
Updated: 2012-03-09
Packaged: 2017-11-01 16:51:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/359113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cruentum/pseuds/cyus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack and Ianto are going to a rugby match.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dressing Down

**Author's Note:**

> originally posted on LJ 28/08/09

Cardiff was boiling, if not with sun, then at least excitement. Ianto felt it. It was that thrum of a good match, anticipation of beer and crowds and the perfect try. The tickets were in his jeans pocket; he hadn't been to a game in too long.

There were rowers on the Taff further upstream maybe, but as Jack and Ianto strolled past the other side of the Brains plant to get to the stadium, it was Industrial Cardiff at its best, and Ianto didn't fancy a swim in the water. It reeked of everything you forgot when you looked at the new high rise buildings of the city's skyline. A group of blokes pushed past them, their rugby shirts damp with sweat, their voices hoarse. One of them jostled Jack, half-apologized, half laughed. A water taxi went by, cheering people on the way to the game themselves.

"Been to see them play before?" Ianto said, watching the group's retreating backs, white numbers on red, when their shouts of a sure win carried them towards the stadium.

"Was in the 60s." Jack nodded, cocked his head at the stadium like it had grown out of nothing and he wasn't quite sure how it had got there.

"Right. You said you hadn't." Ianto paused, glanced at Jack.

Jack shrugged. The braces pulled tight across the fabric of his shirt

"Should have got you to wear a rugby shirt," Ianto muttered when a girl on a bike peddled past, looked at Jack then at Ianto, trying to figure them out.

The stadium bulged over the side of the Taff like it was just waiting to take a dive in and expected you to have a bit more faith in the construction. Jack had opted out of the coat for summer and daytime, now if he'd lose the braces Ianto would actually not feel embarrassed or like he was leading a lunatic through town on his ten minutes of freedom a day.

"You'll die in the heat," Ianto had said earlier, down in the body of the Hub, slow day, nothing to do. Programs they'd started running had compiled data. "You'll die and come back up, and I'll be over there most certainly not belonging to you."

"Ashamed?" Jack had grinned, strutted down the walkway like he was walking for Galliano with crazy clothes for a politely clapping audience in hoods and bold shapes.

"Sometimes," Ianto had dead-panned, hands on his hips. He could get hard for that coat, but not in a crowd of rugby fans, not when they weren't TORCHWOOD, all-caps.

Jack had lost the coat then, a few seconds of eye contact and Ianto was willing to buy into telepathy when it made Jack shrug out of the coat for him, but the braces still made him stand out enough, and Ianto kept his gaze on his shoes more than on Cardiff's summer dress-up or the rugby fans. He was wearing his shirt, like a good Welsh lad and tried to put on the brave face of _he just happens to be walking next to me_.

It wasn't that Jack was a bloke, only that Jack was Jack.

"How did we do when you went?" Ianto asked now, as they ducked into the tunnel under the rails, split when a cyclist ignored the get-off-your-fucking-bicycle sign and nearly ran them over.

"Lost."

"Badly?"

Jack raised an eyebrow at Ianto. "Can't say I remember. Maybe?"

Ianto rolled his eyes. "Wrong answer, try again."

Memories were a sore topic with Jack, the having, the losing, and Ianto didn't ask usually, but it was rugby results of the 60s, a boy could dream and not think about the trauma of it all as if he was Jack's keeper of the moment.

Two girls in tight shirts, and Ianto appreciated that sight just fine, were giggling, sneaking glances at Jack. Jack grinned at them and they flushed, probably wet their knickers. Still Ianto kept a foot between him and Jack and the braces and the period clothes that he could have got away with for cricket but not for rugby. And Ianto, he wasn't a cricket lad, sorry.

Ianto produced their tickets for the stadium at the entrance, and Jack's muttered "Torchwood" got them past the security with their weapons, Jack's concealed around his ankle. He'd been watching too much Bond on Ianto's sofa. They made their way to their seats, grabbed a beer on the way.

The stadium was a sea of red and a sea of noise.

"Should've worn a rugby shirt," Ianto told Jack, snuck a glance at him from the side as Jack lounged in the plastic chair and Ianto sat ram-rod straight, playing with his plastic cup, observing the audience, the field, the fucking sky to avoid direct eye contact.

Jack leaned closer, expression vaguely amused and slightly sour, arms crossed in front of his chest. "You _are_ fucking an ex-time agent."

Ianto snorted."I was just trying to forget that, thank you very much." He played with his cup, sipped on the beer, and Jack's slacks brushed against his leg, the braces just inside his field of vision. "Thought they'd have wanted you to blend in," he muttered.

"An _immortal_ ex time agent," Jack continued, eyes on the field, chin jutted out.

Ianto could hear the self-deprecating twist on the word, because Jack didn't do conversations, he only did cold reality checks. The laugh made it into the cup of beer just as Ianto was trying to drink. "You forgot to capitalize that. The Immortal, thanks again for the reminder, Jack. I was-"

"-you enjoy it though." Jack turned to Ianto, a smile on his lips, hard lines around his eyes.

"What?"

"You enjoy fucking something that will never go away, never completely, a bit like leaving your mark on time itself. Must be a headrush."

Ianto turned to Jack fully, stared at him. "You are an idiot sometimes." He leaned in close. "I enjoy fucking you because I enjoy fucking you, not everything is about the great big mystery, Jack." He leaned back again, shrugged. "You'd have been hot in a rugby shirt. And not looked like you are playing dress-up for kink."

The game started and Ianto cheered, more than he'd thought he would, it helped that they were winning. Jack was watching, pouting maybe about the unfairness of his solitary existence and the weight of time on his shoulders.

When the game let out and they made it down the steps and out of the stadium, walked towards the Bay down Bute Street and passed a group of kids playing basketball, all in silence because Jack was brooding and not on a roof. Ianto was drunk enough to be ticked off at being ignored as the boy in the early 21st century or whatever he'd be remembered as if memory wasn't a hit and miss game.

Ianto turned to Jack, stopped him in the middle of the sidewalk and pushed his braces off his shoulders, unbuttoned Jack's shirt.

"Now that's what I call public," Jack started.

Ianto shook his head. "Stuff if, Jack." He pulled Jack's shirt from his trousers, tucked it between his knees, then pulled off his own rugby shirt.

Jack raised his eyebrows, a snapping remark forming behind those pursed lips.

"Arms up," Ianto said, calmly, ignoring the hoots from the teenagers across the street.

Jack raised his arms and Ianto pulled his rugby shirt over Jack's arms, tugged a bit harder to get Jack's head through and it into place, over the white shirt underneath, the braces loose against Jack's thighs, to fall down to around his Jack's crotch.

"Proper Welsh now," Ianto said as he shrugged on Jack's button-down.

The shirt made Jack look ridiculous, but at least it made him look like he was trying.

"You're half-naked," Jack said, nodded at Ianto's chest, reached out only to have Ianto take a step back

"Leave it." Ianto rolled his eyes and continued to walk towards the bay, buttoning up the shirt.

"Do I get an explanation?" Jack asked, catching up.

"Stop being stuck in your own fucking past, Jack, and live for the moment." Ianto turned, walking backwards so he could face Jack. "I'm here, you're here, I'm fucking a man, because it's you, so..." He shook his head. "Whatever."

"You're fucking an immortal."

"Yeah, do you honestly think I could forget that? So wear a fucking rugby shirt the next time so I don't feel I'm taking an alien to a match." Ianto shook his head. "Indulge me. It's what people do when they fuck."

Jack laughed. "Big speeches there."

The sun had set over the Bay and the last water taxi of the night, and Ianto knew the schedule, padded past them to let out the people just a few steps from the tourist office.

"I don't belong here," Jack added.

Ianto snorted, kept his gaze on his feet as he was walking ahead of Jack. "You could try. That's what people do."

"Ouch," Jack said, reached out to catch Ianto by the waistband of his jeans, fingertips skirting over naked skin as he stopped him in mid-stride, "I won't say I love-"

"You shouldn't." Ianto turned, and wished he could wipe that smile off Jack's face. The lips twisted for defense and irony. He shook his head. "Just wear a rugby shirt next time, yeah? For me?"


End file.
